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February 2018

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

No players kneel during national anthem at Super Bowl By Brandon Conradis

By on February 5th, 2018

No players knelt or sat during the national anthem as the Super Bowl kicked off in Minneapolis on Sunday, according to The Associated Press.

Pop singer Pink performed a rendition of the song as players for the New England Patriots and Philadelphia Eagles stood on the sidelines.

Many Patriots players could be seen with their hands over their hearts, the AP reported.

Prior to the game, President Trump released a statement in which he called on Americans to “proudly stand for the National Anthem.”

The NFL season has been rocked by controversy as players have protested police violence and racial injustice by kneeling or sitting during the anthem, raising the ire of many on the right, including Trump.

Though the protests were started in 2016 by current free agent Colin Kaepernick, Trump fanned the flames in September when he said the league should fire the protesters.

His call led to a wave of player protests across the league, as well as heightened tensions between players and league representatives.

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EDUCATION, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Jacob Rees-Mogg MP: Victim of Bristol University’s Red Guards By Paul Austin Murphy

By on February 5th, 2018

The British Conservative MP, Jacob Rees-Mogg, has just been caught up in the middle of a violent scuffle while giving a talk at a British university. This is the very same Rees-Mogg who’s been tipped to be the next leader of the British Conservative Party.

He’d been speaking at the University of Bristol’s Politics and International Relations Society when it was stormed by left-wing Red Guards.

One Bristol University student, a William Brown, said:

“These people in balaclavas and sunglasses started shouting, things like ‘Tory fascist’.

“They were quite intimidating actually.

“They were waving their hands around, shouting very loudly.”

This student also stated that a few punches were thrown.

The same student added:

“Jacob went to calm them down, I think he came out of it very well.

“He was encouraging them to speak, without shouting, saying something like ‘I’m happy to talk if you want’.”

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ISRAEL Comments turned off

GOOD NEWS FROM AMAZING ISRAEL FROM MICHAEL ORDMAN

By on February 5th, 2018

ISRAEL’S MEDICAL ACHIEVEMENTS

Treatment for Fabry disease fast-tracked. I reported previously (Jan 2015) on the promising trials for the Fabry disease treatment PRX-102 from Israel’s Protalix. PRX-102 is currently in Phase III trials and has just been granted fast-track status by the US FDA. Fabry disease damages the kidneys and heart and has no cure.
https://www.globes.co.il/en/article-fda-fast-tracks-protalixs-fabry-disease-drug-1001221935

How iron levels are maintained. Researchers at Israel’s Technion have uncovered the mechanism by which the body transports the essential protein ferritin around the body. Ferritin maintains iron levels in the red blood cells that bring oxygen to the brain. Iron deficiency is a major cause of many brain diseases.
https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2018/01/the-bodys-golden-gate-to-iron-traffic/

Breakthrough brain device. I reported previously (4 times) on Israel’s MedyMatch, whose software gives more accurate assessments about strokes and intracranial bleeds. MedyMatch has now been granted Expedited Access Pathway and Breakthrough Device designation by the FDA for intracranial hemorrhage detection.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/medymatch-tech-for-pinpointing-brain-bleeds-gets-fda-nod-for-quick-approval/

$18 million donation for Health Discovery tower. I reported previously (30th Apr) about the new 20-story medical research tower being built at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa. Now the Helmsley Trust is donating $18 million to the project and the building is to be named the “Helmsley Medical Discovery Tower”.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/E-NEqhoEJdk?rel=0

Recovery is in the balance. Israeli startup Bobo has developed a smart board that records, analyses and gives feedback to physiotherapists on a patient’s ability to maintain balance during rehabilitation following surgery or treatment. Trials in Hadassah Medical Center have proved Bobo’s usefulness and it is now heading to the USA.
http://bobo-balance.com/ https://www.youtube.com/embed/7ofYpHGtBeg?rel=0
https://www.youtube.com/embed/MuGD_xRSCYU?rel=0

Latest news on POP repair device. I reported previously (Aug 2016) on the minimally-invasive inter-uterine device from Israel’s POP Medical that repairs Pelvic Organ Prolapse (POP) affecting 50% of women. The FDA-approved NeuGuide is soon to undergo new trials in the US and Israel to build confidence and data.
https://www.israel21c.org/a-new-mesh-free-way-to-repair-pelvic-organ-prolapse/

Disaster training for 1000. (TY Nevet) The fifth IPRED international conference led by Israel’s Ministry of Health and the Home Front Command attracted 1000 emergency responders from 35 countries. It ended with a simulated mass-casualty exercise in Petah Tikva that received media attention from as far away as China.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-5073053,00.html
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/29/c_136931804.htm

New Center for Translational Medicine. Tel Aviv University is establishing an innovation center for translational medicine. The aim is to reduce the time for bringing a new treatment to market by combining academic research with clinical trials. Only afterwards will the treatment be licensed to a commercial company.
https://www.globes.co.il/en/article-tel-aviv-university-sets-up-medical-research-center-1001221781

The first International Biomedical Informatics conference. In December, Israel’s Technion hosted the first international conference on biomedical informatics – where data collected by universities, hospitals and health funds is analyzed and the results used to adapt treatments to individual patients.
https://www.technion.ac.il/en/2018/01/biomedical-informatics-at-technion/

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ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

With Cairo’s Approval, Israeli Planes Bombing ISIS Targets in Egypt By Rick Moran

By on February 5th, 2018

The New York Times is reporting that there is a “secret alliance” between Egypt and Israel to combat ISIS along the Sinai border between the two countries.

The report claims that Israel has flown more than 100 missions in the last two years, striking targets in the terrorists’ stronghold in Egypt with the full knowledge and cooperation of Cairo’s government.

Egypt appeared unable to stop them, so Israel, alarmed at the threat just over the border, took action.

For more than two years, unmarked Israeli drones, helicopters and jets have carried out a covert air campaign, conducting more than 100 airstrikes inside Egypt, frequently more than once a week — and all with the approval of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

The remarkable cooperation marks a new stage in the evolution of their singularly fraught relationship. Once enemies in three wars, then antagonists in an uneasy peace, Egypt and Israel are now secret allies in a covert war against a common foe.

“Remarkable cooperation” is an understatement. Al-Sisi is looking for any friend he can find, given he’s got an extremely active terrorist group in the north and an increasingly aggressive Shia Iran stirring up trouble along its borders. An alliance — even a surreptitious one with Israel — makes perfect sense from a strategic point of view.

Their collaboration in the North Sinai is the most dramatic evidence yet of a quiet reconfiguration of the politics of the region. Shared enemies like ISIS, Iran and political Islam have quietly brought the leaders of several Arab states into growing alignment with Israel — even as their officials and news media continue to vilify the Jewish state in public.

Al-Sisi should expect little support from the Egyptian street and outright opposition to the alliance from the mosques. But the former general who is running for president again has an ironclad grip on the country so opposition to his actions is meaningless. CONTINUE AT SITE

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MEDIA, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Helge Lurås: Taking on the MSM in Norway By Bruce Bawer

By on February 5th, 2018

Good news media are all alike; every bad news medium is bad in its own way. This is not to say that bad news media do not have certain attributes in common. In these days when the Western political and cultural establishment considers it de rigueur to avoid certain unpleasant truths, for example, bad news media tend to whitewash Islam, big time.

But there are different ways of approaching this task. Take Norway. With a couple of exceptions, all of the country’s major newspapers are mediocre, mendacious, and exceedingly Islam-friendly. The dignified look and traditional stylebook of Aftenposten, originally a Conservative Party organ, put a bourgeois façade on its hard-left contents; opinion-heavy Dagbladet, founded as a Liberal Party sheet, wears its socialism – and its enthusiasm for Islam and mass immigration – on its sleeve; VG provides heavy doses of pop culture to make its left-wing politics go down more easily.

Worst of all is Dagsavisen, an anorexically slim sheet that used to be the Labor Party’s (and government’s) official gazette and that now survives only thanks to a hefty line item in the national budget. In 2016, Dagbladet printed 20,440 copies a day and received $4.8 million from the state – a subsidy of $234 per reader. You’d think these people would be ashamed of themselves for ripping off taxpayers so flagrantly. On the contrary, this lame welfare queen of a daily exudes a staggering self-importance, posturing as the intellectual’s choice and presenting its shrill, predictable leftism as sophisticated and original.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Nunes memo raises question: Did FBI violate Woods Procedures? By Sharyl Attkisson,

By on February 5th, 2018

For all the debate over the House Republican memo pointing to alleged misconduct by some current and former FBI and Justice Department officials, one crucial point hasn’t gotten the attention it deserves.

And it relates in an unexpected way to special counsel Robert Mueller.

The point is: There are strict rules requiring that each and every fact presented in an FBI request to electronically spy on a U.S. citizen be extreme-vetted for accuracy — and presented to the court only if verified.

There’s no dispute that at least some, if not a great deal, of information in the anti-Trump “Steele dossier” was unverified or false. Former FBI director James Comey testified as much himself before a Senate committee in June 2017. Comey repeatedly referred to “salacious” and “unverified” material in the dossier, which turned out to be paid political opposition research against Donald Trump funded first by Republicans, then by the Democratic National Committee and the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Presentation of any such unverified material to the Federal Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court to justify a wiretap would appear to violate crucial procedural rules, called “Woods Procedures,” designed to protect U.S. citizens.

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NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The Memo and the Mueller Probe If the investigation arose from partisan opposition research, what specific crime is he looking into? By Michael B. Mukasey

By on February 5th, 2018

The memo released Friday by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was the product of necessity, not choice. Even before its release, the debate over its provenance, motive and effect was obscuring the crucial point that it is the underlying facts the memo alleges that present the real issues.

The committee’s memo says that yet another memo, which goes by the cloak-and-dagger title “Steele dossier,” provided at least part of the basis for a wiretap of Carter Page, a U.S. citizen who had volunteered as a foreign policy-consultant to the Trump campaign. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court granted the wiretap application from the FBI and Justice Department two weeks before the 2016 election. In order to obtain the warrant, the government had to show probable cause that Mr. Page was acting as the agent of a foreign power and that in so doing he had committed a crime.

The Steele dossier is 35 pages of opposition research on Donald Trump, described by former FBI Director James Comey as “salacious and unverified.” It was paid for by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, and compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent who had a luminous dislike for Mr. Trump and was also an informant for the FBI.

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